


Not Yet

by NotEvenCloseToStraight



Series: Short Stories! [18]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Bucky Barnes Feels, Character Death, First Kisses, Light Angst, M/M, Near Death Experiences, Not Really Character Death, Reincarnation, Sort Of, Tony is Death, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes, alternate first meeting, because Reincarnation, winteriron
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-20
Updated: 2017-11-20
Packaged: 2019-02-04 20:49:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12779238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NotEvenCloseToStraight/pseuds/NotEvenCloseToStraight
Summary: The first time Death comes for Bucky, he is twelve years old and drowning.Bucky meets Death often in his life as the Winter Soldier, and the beautiful man with dark hair and intriguing eyes is always there when Bucky thinks he is done, thinks he has finally died. But Death only smiles, shakes his head and whispers, "Not Yet." and sends Bucky back to his body. After nearly seventy years of this, Bucky thinks he has fallen in love with the man in his dreams, the one who guards the Veil between this world and the next, the one who had made a deal to serve as Death for a lifetime, for another chance at living sometime in the future.Little do the two of them know, its a future they are supposed to share, as Tony Stark and Bucky Barnes((((So… I dont know what happened. I had this weird thought about Tony being Sherlock Holmes in a past life, and then something about him being Immortal, and then it was random about Deadpool and Mistress Death (Lady Death?) being together, and I thought hey, what if Tony was DEATH and Bucky is a soldier that keeps almost dying but so they keep meeting??And then this happened. It got surprisingly long and surprisingly emotional lol. ))))Enjoy :)





	Not Yet

The first time Death came for Bucky, he was barely twelve-- and drowning. **  
**

It had been Stevies fault. Well  _not_ Stevies fault because he couldn't help that he couldn't throw very far, couldn't help that he had started coughing and the ball had slipped from his hands and over the wall into the water.

Not Stevies fault, but he had apologized over and over, and Bucky had just rolled his eyes and jumped the wall and splashed into the cold water to find it. It wasn't the first time he had went into the water after a toy, wouldn't be the last time, it really wasn't a big deal.

Except this time it was, because someone had been dumping trash in the water again and just as Bucky was reaching out for the baseball, hardly able to see it through the murky water, his foot snagged on a net and he was caught fast.

And he knew he was done for.

Stevie couldn't swim enough to rescue him.

Bucky struggled and struggled but it wasn't going to work, as his lungs started burning and his vision started getting hazy, a man appeared in front of him.

“Drowning hurts, doesn't it?” the man said quietly, calmly, as if he wasn't watching Bucky struggle for his life. And then Bucky realized that he wasn't struggling anymore, that his body was still and drifting in the water, and he could hear the man plain as day, like they were above water.

 _Oh_.

“I'm dead.” Bucky said in amazement, and the man with dark hair and piercing eyes shook his head.

“Not quite.”

“I'm gonna die though.” Bucky should have been bothered by that idea, shouldn't he?

But the man shook his head and reached out to touch Bucky's forehead.

“Not yet.”

Bucky woke up on the rocks next to the water, coughing up water and hearing Steve screaming hysterically that his friend was dead.

“Stevie. Stop screechin’.” He said hoarsely, and then Steve was jumping on him, shaking him, pummeling him with little fists because  _what in the hell was Bucky thinkin gettin stuck like that, he nearly gave Steve a heart attack and---_

Bucky caught Steve’s hands and tried to laugh.

“Aint dead yet, Stevie. Not yet.”

******************************

 

* * *

 

 

******************************

Bucky thought a lot about the man he had seen in the water for a few years after that, and always wondered if the man had been an angel. But weren’t angels pretty girls with blonde hair? Not men in suits looking like an undertaker? And why did he have an accent like those posh Brits?

Bucky thought about him a lot, and then a little less, then less than that once girls started wanting to kiss him, and by the time he enlisted in the army, he had all but chocked the experience up to a dream.

But then he and his platoon were captured and taken behind enemy lines, and they pulled Bucky into another room to run tests on him.

They laid him out on a table and ran wires through him, injected him with all sorts of stuff. Sometimes it made him sick, sometimes it made him aggressive and they had to beat him down and sedate him.

One time, it killed him. Bucky was sure of it.

It had been just like every other time. That creepy doctor, the horrible table they strapped him to, the prick of a needle and a rush of heat and then pain and then--

\--nothing.

Bucky opened his eyes and felt nothing, heard nothing,  _saw_ nothing but grey in front of him.

Grey, and a man in a black suit with dark hair and piercing eyes.

“You again.” he said hoarsely. “I must be dead.”

“Not quite.” the man’s voice was smooth, low in a way Bucky hadn't noticed when he was younger, the accent seeming less pronounced now. “Even though this time is much more traumatic than just drowning, isn't it?”

“I think it hurts less.” Bucky said honestly. “Jus’ a needle and then I'm gone.”

“Yes, quite humane.” the man smiled, more of a smirk really. “But you’re not dead.”

“So where am I then?”

“Hm.” the man seemed surprised, like no one had ever asked him the question before. “Some people call it the veil? The rift between the physical world and the spiritual world. Purgatory, perhaps, even though that's not entirely correct, I suppose.”

“You’re not an angel.” Bucky stated, but his voice was starting to sound fuzzy, pain rushing back into his body.

“Not an angel.” The man agreed, and leaned forward to touch Bucky's forehead. “And you’re not dead. Not yet.”

Bucky's eyes flew open to see the doctor grinning down at him. “An excellent test.” the man said gleefully. “We are ready to proceed to the next---”

There was an explosion, and shouting, and gunfire, and when Bucky opened dazed eyes again,  _Steve_ was staring down at him.

“I thought you were smaller.” he blurted and Steve put an arm around him to help him out.

Bucky couldn't shake the feeling of dark eyes watching from a corner.

************************

************************

The third time Death came for Bucky, it was a relief.

“It hurts doesn't it? Falling like that.” The man in the suit looked up up  _up_ at the train tracks Bucky had fallen from. “More than drowning? Or perhaps less.”

“Why do you ask?” Bucky wasn't even in his body this time, but he could see himself lying broken over the rocks at the bottom of the ravine, several yards past where he and the man sat on an outcropping. “Why do you ask how it hurts?”

“Because I am trying to make sure I remember how it feels. Too long at this job and you forget human things like pain.”

“You’re Death.” Bucky shook his head. “I thought you were an angel the first time, but you’re not. You’re Death.”

“Yes, I am.”

“You used to be human?”

“A long time ago. The afterworld did not look kindly on me with my addictions and penchance for violence and willingness to hurt people just to satisfy my curiosity. The suicide didn't help.”

“Suicide?” Bucky blinked at him. “Why would you-- why did you---”

“I was searching for a story.” Death was staring down at Bucky’s body down below. “Caught in my own ego. Jumped off a waterfall, if you can believe it. Reichenbach.”

“Reichenbach.” Bucky repeated. “I don't under--”

“You don't have to understand.” Death interrupted. “You’ve been out of your body too long as it is. Time to go back.”

“I'm hurt.” Bucky swallowed, looking at his left arm that hung at a terrible angle, nearly torn from his body. “It will hurt.”

Men were working their way down the ravine, calling to each other excitedly when they found Bucky's body, and Death put a hand on Bucky's thigh.

“It will hurt.  _You_ will hurt. But you will live. It is not your time. Not yet.”

A touch to his forehead and Death was gone.

Bucky opened his eyes as they were grafting a metal arm to his body, and started screaming.

************************

************************

Death found him in Hungary, after he had assassinated some politician, and was sitting in his hotel room listening to someone named  _Elvis_ across the radio.

“The drink was poisoned.” Death said calmly and Bucky blinked up at him in surprise, and then over to his body on the bed. “Did it hurt?”

“No.” Bucky shook his head. “I was tired and then I fell asleep. Why do I recognize you, when I don't recognize anything when I am awake?”

“Because in here--” Death tapped his forehead. “You are still Bucky Barnes even if the world knows you as a Soldier.”

“How did you become Death?” Bucky reveled in the clearness of his mind, the ability to think of something beside his mission and knowing he was going to be put back under when he got back to base.

“I was offered a deal.” Death was staring out at the city. “I had not planned to die on the falls, my pride convinced me I could survive, but I did not. I was furious, convinced my work was not over, thinking surely if I had had more time, I could have changed the world with nothing but my mind as a weapon.”

“So?” Bucky found himself staring at Death, at the lean muscles outlined beneath the fitted suit, the long legs and strong hands. The eyes didn't seem so piercing, now they had an edge of softness, a spark of light that seemed at odds with who-- _what_ \-- the man was.

“So.” a smile, a smirk, something little more than a flicker of expression. “I was offered a deal in the afterlife. If I became Death for a lifetime, then I would have a second chance.”

“How long is a lifetime?”

“Longer than you would think.”

“When did you die?”

“1893.”

“Am I dead this time?” Bucky finally asked and Death shook his head.

“No, it will take much more than poisoned water to kill you, Bucky. You aren't dead.” Death crossed the room, and Bucky wasn't sure if he floated or if he had actually taken steps, but Death came close this time, stepping into Bucky's space and tilting his head curiously as he stared.

“It's odd how human you make me feel.” he murmured after another minute. “Every time we meet like this, I feel closer and closer to the end of my sentence.” 

“Next time maybe I'll die for real.” Bucky replied, and it surprised him how badly he wanted that to be true. Being the Soldier didn't mean that his mind was shut off, it meant that Bucky was locked in a cage, far in the back of his consciousness, screaming for  _help_ as he watched the Soldier carry out missions.

“You have not had an easy life.” Death nodded shortly. “But it is not over. Not yet.”

A hand to his forehead, and Bucky closed his eyes and leaned into the surprising warmth of Death’s skin.

Then he woke up vomiting, purging the poison from his body, and just before the Soldier slipped back into control, Bucky could have sworn he saw Death hovering near the door, one of those dark eyes closed in a wink before he shimmered out of view.

*********************

*********************

“My sentence is almost up.” Death said as they stood watching Bucky’s body being strapped into that awful chair, electrodes placed to his body, a defibrillator warming up as the scientists scrambled to bring him back. “I can feel it.”

It was 1969 and Bucky had died, or nearly died in a mission gone wrong. Death had come to him instantly and they had watched together as Buckys body was recovered from the city and taken back to base. 

“Are you taking me with you this time?” Bucky asked, reaching out to touch Death’s shoulder. This was their nineteenth time together now, counting from when he had nearly drowned all those years ago. Nineteen times-- sixteen of them as the Soldier-- when Death had appeared to him, spoken with him and left with a quiet not yet. 

“No.” Death shook his head, and his eyes were sad. “Bucky, it isn't your time. The serum they have used in you makes you almost immortal. You have been crushed, been broken, been shot at and thrown off buildings. You remember when I found you in the ocean?”

“Not gonna forget it.” Bucky smiled a little and Death smiled back.

“You are meant to live.” Death shrugged lightly. “I don’t know why, and it's not my place to ask.”

“I'll miss you.” Bucky said honestly. “These times I nearly die are the only times I am myself anymore, the only time I am Bucky. They’re getting less and less often.”

“Yes, it has been some time since I've seen you.” Death nodded. “I would say I'm pleased, but like you, I've come to enjoy these moments.”

“Your accent is gone.” Bucky noted, with a twinge of wistfulness. “When I first met you I could barely understand you through it.”

“I think when I get my second chance at life, I won't be British this time around.” Death said with a wan smile. “It's a shame. I liked solving mysteries there.”

“You don't know who you will be?”

“Not a clue. It's better that way, I'm sure. Otherwise I'd probably spy on my prospective parents and wreak havoc in their lives because I was something of a prankster back then, and I'm certain I will be again.”

“Will you kiss me?” Bucky watched the doctors up the charge on the defib machine and knew it wouldn't be much longer before he jolted back awake.

“You want to kiss Death?” Death sounded amused and at the same time sad. “Wouldn't you rather take the chance that you are still alive sometime in the future and we could kiss as humans?”

“If you want.” Bucky shrugged, feeling like he had when he was fifteen and asked the girl down the street to kiss him, shy and awkward and hoping he wouldn't get turned down. He didn’t really know when he had fallen in love with the man named Death, but he had at some point, one of these when he hovered between life and Death, when he was Bucky instead of the Soldier and Death was there to talk to him, to comfort him.

“Id like to kiss you  _now_ , though.” he added after Death was quiet for a long time. 

“Hm.” Death hummed to himself, then turned Bucky towards him and leaned in to kiss him firmly, pale hands curling in Bucky's shirt, rough stubble tickling Bucky's chin.

“ _Oh_.” Bucky's eyes opened wide, but Deaths were closed, a peaceful smile on his face. “Come back and do that again.”

He reached out again, but Death shook his head and put his palm on Bucky's forehead.

“Some other lifetime.” he said quietly. “Just not yet.”

Bucky’s eyes opened slowly and the doctors around him looked relieved, because it would have cost them their own lives if they couldn't save him.

Then someone opened that cursed red book and started reading, and other voices mumbled that they needed to be sure his conditioning was still intact after being dead for so many minutes, and they forced a mouthguard between his lips and electricity sparked around him.

Bucky closed his eyes and willed the Soldier to come forward, knowing this time if he died, the man in the dark suit wouldn't be there to save him.

************************

************************

Bucky had thought he was dreaming the first several days of therapy, when Steve would walk through the door with that same smile and scrappy attitude and pat him on the back and say “We will make it through this Bucky. I'm with ya till the end of the line.”

Then he thought maybe he had  _actually_ died after falling from that huge plane/ship thing that had SHIELD emblazoned across it.

It had been a long fall after all, and he had barely managed to drag the big blond he had been fighting out of the water, stumbling away before collapsing in the trees. He didn't know exactly why he had saved the man, only that he knew he  _had_ to, and then he had woken up in a hospital and it was  _Steve_ sitting by his hospital bed.

It came and went in flashes after that, as the Soldier tried to keep control and Bucky fought back. It was days of therapy and nights of nightmares and more therapy and doctors and Steve just sitting by him and talking to him and sometimes Steve cried, and those were when Bucky REALLY thought he had died, because except for his parents funeral, Steve Rogers didn't cry.

“I cried when I lost you, Buck.” the big blonde had said one night and then they had hugged and it was real and solid and  _warm_ and Bucky knew he wasn't dead.

Not yet, anyway.

“Don't worry about Tony.” Steve was saying now, as they exited an elevator and stepped into big common area near the top of a Tower somewhere in New York. “He can be a pain in the ass, but he has a heart of gold.”

“Steve! You made it back!” A lean brunette with dark hair and even darker eyes came jogging through a door and grabbed Steve in a hug. “So glad you’re home.”

“Good to be back, Tony.” Steve grinned down at the man, and then motioned Bucky forward. “Buck, this is Tony. Tony this is my best friend, Bucky.”

“Bucky.” the man repeated, and Bucky stared and  _stared_ because the suit was quite a bit more modern than he had seen last, and the haircut was different, not as soft and not as curly. The accent was gone completely, and the scruff had grown into a goatee with some ridiculous design. There was something glowing in the man’s chest, and the voice seemed a touch deeper, but the hand that grabbed Bucky's was the  _same_ , and that smile was the  _same_ , and when the man winked Bucky didn't know what else to do besides reach out and drag him into a kiss.

 _And that was definitely the same_.

Bucky kissed him like he was drowning, like he was falling, like he was waking up for the first time in seventy years and Death kissed him back with all the pent up emotion of nearly forty years apart.

“Was that better than the first time?” Death--  _Tony_ \-- asked quietly when Bucky let him breathe (the man was  _breathing_ because he was  _human_ and Bucky couldn't quite handle that).

“I don't know.” Bucky gasped. “Lets try it again and see.”

Tony kissed him again, and this time he reached up to place his palm on Bucky's forehead, then it slide down his face to his jaw, further down to feel the heart pounding out of control beneath his chest.

“I thought you were gonna do that, and I was gonna wake up and have this all be a dream.” Bucky whispered. “I'm fine if this is a dream, but don't make me wake up yet.”

“Not yet.” Tony agreed. “Not yet.”

*********************

*********************

Tony and Bucky were an odd couple, but no one else in the Tower was exactly  **normal** so no one ever commented on it.

Tony had an unsettling habit of reading obituaries, and sometimes he would point out people who had passed in their nineties and talk about them as if he had known them.

Bucky developed an obsession with Sherlock Holmes books, and would read for days at a time, laughing or cheering or crying at the appropriate parts, finding Tony and cuddling him fiercely at others.

Tony discovered a Sherlock series on television, and he booed and hissed at the actor playing Sherlock, muttering about how it  _hadn't_ happened that way, and how Irene had certainly  _not_ been some degenerate sex queen. It made everyone fairly uneasy.

Bucky mentioned over dinner one night that he missed Tony's accent, and even though the team knew Tony Stark had  _never_ had an English accent, some nights they would overhear Tony reading to Bucky from a Sherlock adventure, a posh British accent turning his voice into something nearly unrecognizable.

One rainy afternoon as the team sat around playing cards and bullshitting each other, Steve casually told the story of Bucky diving into the water to save their baseball because Steve had the worst throw ever. It was funny of course, because now Steve had an arm like a cannon, and the whole group laughed, except for Bucky who reached over and kissed Tony breathless before pulling him out of the room and upstairs.

_(Steve never understood why that story was so romantic)_

When Bucky and Tony got married, even their vows were odd, but Natasha glared so fiercely at the priest that he didn't dare say anything about it.

Bucky looked down at Tony and promised to live calmly this life so they had all the time they could have together, and to live violently the next so they saw each other as often as possible.

Tony smiled up at his soon to be husband and promised to make another deal for his soul and to keep his accent this time around.

They both said that Death would not part them, that time would not slow them down, and that when it was time to say goodbye, they would shake their head and demand, “Not Yet.”

It was endearing and sort of horrifying but somehow perfect, and everyone cheered and cried when they kissed.

For their first Valentines day, Bucky got Tony black roses and a coffee mug with a cranky reaper on it.

Tony laughed until he cried.  _(Nobody else thought it was funny, Pepper smacked Bucky for getting his new husband black roses and Bucky just shrugged, because how was he going to explain that)_

For Easter, Tony got Bucky an Easter basket full of his favorite candy and something edible that shouldn't be outside of the bedroom, and a train set that had a very high bridge in the design and Steve was horrified that Tony would be so blase about Bucky's fall but Bucky just rolled his eyes and murmured something about doing it all over again if he had to.

**********************

**********************

Years rolled by faster and faster, as they tend to do when people are happy, and Tony was having a hard time getting out of bed by himself, the arc reactor in his chest little more than a pacemaker these days now that he was decades past being Iron Man. Trips to the doctors office became home visits, and eventually hospice care and Bucky had to lift Tony in and out of bed.

The doctor never had good news anymore, only sighed and said it was a matter of time, and Bucky held Tony's hand and shook his head in denial and whispered fiercely, “Not yet. Not yet, Tony, I'm not ready. I'm not ready. Not yet.”

“Don't worry.” Tony said with a smirk that was only a shadow of what it used to be, and a wink. “I already made my deal with the devil. We should be fine.”

“No, Tony, no.” Bucky shook his head harder. “Not yet, I'm not ready.”

“It's alright.” Tony coughed and put his head back on the pillow. “Remember your vows. Live violently so I get to see you lots.”

“Goddamnit.” Bucky choked out. “Tony  _please_ \--”

But Tony was gone.

************************

************************

Bucky buried Tony in his favorite suit and tucked a well worn copy of “The Final Problem” by A.C. Doyle in next to him.

************************

************************

The next time Death came for Bucky, he was one hundred and forty two years old, but he got carded as he walked into a bar somewhere in California because despite the glint in his eye and the way he carried himself-- when he shaved his stubble he could still pass for early twenties.

He wasn't there to drink, he was there to catch someone who had just crossed back into US borders. Steve was still in Japan, but had called to let Bucky know the man had escaped, and here he was.

Bucky was distracted though-- it had been six months to the day since Tony had passed and it was heavy on his mind, so he was caught unawares by the men that dragged him outside, and fell to his knees when they jabbed a needle in his skin and sedative started pumping through his veins.

Then they were kicking and punching at him, and Bucky's eyes drifted close--

“We really should stop meeting like this.” the accented voice had Bucky looking up, looking around and there stood Death, in a perfectly tailored suit, a copy of The Final Problem tucked under his arm, a ridiculous top hat from the eighteen hundreds on his head, and a pipe between his teeth.

“I'm not dead, am I?” Bucky asked and Death--  _Tony_ \-- shook his head. “Can you come here and kiss me?”

“I'm afraid I’m not quite solid yet.” Tony explained in an irritated tone, but he moved closed and kissed Bucky as well as he could. “I’ve missed you.”

“I've missed you too.” Bucky reached out to touch, feeling warm skin for just a second before his fingers wafted through mist. “I promise this wasn't on purpose. I was just distracted.”

“Good. I was going to yell at you for that.” Tony motioned over his shoulder to where Bucky's body lay getting the hell kicked out of it. “You really should get back to it, you know.”

“Tony--”

“All Hallows Eve is next month.” Tony interrupted. “Apparently any holiday celebrating the dead means that I can walk a little closer to the mortal world.”

“Yeah?”

“So as morbid as it may sound, husband, perhaps you rent a hotel room and wait for me. We should have just under twelve hours together.”

“Okay.” Bucky nodded eagerly. “Okay, I can do that.”

“Go on then.” Tony pushed at him gently. “Can't linger too long here.”

“Not yet.” Bucky pleaded and tried to touch their foreheads together. “Just a minute more.”

“Just a minute more.” Tony agreed, and closed his eyes. “I'm not ready yet, either.”


End file.
